Zero-G Gets Nostalgic

Nostalgia is a new ZERO-G virtual instrument powered by Native Instruments, featuring over 1.3 gigabytes of sounds and more than 1,300 patches from four decades of electronic instruments.

Programming wizard and all-round synth enthusiast Steve Howell has used his 30+ years of experience and knowledge of these various instruments to create arguably the best and most accurate representations of some of the world’s greatest synths, keyboards and beat boxes that he has either owned or used in a professional capacity as either a sound designer, sound engineer, player or composer in one way or another. Steve has also used his 16+ years of developing professional sample sound libraries to provide highly optimised and memory-efficient, seamlessly looped samples of a heritage of instruments that have paved the way for where we are today – over 40 years of innovation and (often naive) pioneering spirit encapsulated in one definitive collection of abject ‘NOSTALGIA’!

The whole library is presented within NI’s stunning state-of-the-art KOMPAKT INSTRUMENT sampler interface, which makes no compromises in the playing and performing of sample-based instruments. Powerful multi-mode filters, envelopes, and LFOs give this library enormous flexibility and a wealth of creative possibilities. The integrated high-quality reverb, chorus, and delay effects can give each sample life and depth.

PROGRAMMING NOTES:

Sound Quality

All the sounds were recorded and processed at 16 Bit resolution and 44.1KHz sample rate.

Organisation

The Instruments list (which can be viewed by clicking on “Instruments List PDF” at above left) groups the sounds into categories. The categories are as follows:

01 US Classics

02 Euro Classics

03 Japanese Classics

04 Playback Keyboards

05 Organs

06 Electro-Mechanicals

07 Digital ROMpler synths

08 Vintage Samplers

09 Cheap n Cheezy

10 Obscure Synths

11 Drum Synths

12 Classic Beatboxes

13 Obscure Beatboxes

14 Sci-Fi

15 Atmosferics

16 String Synths

17 Basses

Memory Size

All programming has been carried out to minimise the size of the patches thus reducing CPU and Memory Usage. However, the software interface will allow you to activate a Direct from Disk (DFD) functionality if you prefer, thereby enabling the streaming of the samples direct from your hard disk drive.

Modulation Wheel Assignments

Every single instrument has the Modulation Wheel assigned to a function. This gives a lot of dynamic control over the character of the sound. Please try out the modulation wheel when playing each patch. The Mod Wheel may be assigned to one of several different controllers including Tune LFO, Filter Cutoff, Pan and Volume depending on the patch in question.

Polyphony

All instruments are programmed at the default polyphony of 32 notes except for a selection of patches from synths that were originally monophonic and some bass sounds which have thus been programmed as monophonic. If you wish to increase the polyphony please do so.

Multis

Up to 8 instruments can be combined in a Multi giving a vast array of possible combinations of the supplied single instruments. For example try combining a couple of bass instruments for some really fat and thunderous sounds. Or how about combining a Sawtooth and Square wave pad and then using the modwheel to crossfade between them. This latter effect is easy to set up by over-riding the pre-programmed Mod Wheel assignments. Simply set the Mod Wheel to control one instrument with positive volume control and the other with negative volume control.

CPU Load

The exact CPU load of any given instrument depends on a myriad of factors – the power of your computer, notes played, complexity of the instrument etc. However if you find the CPU load is too high for any particular instrument the quickest way of reducing this is to see if the instrument uses any of Kompakt’s own built in FX. If so these can be turned off to maximise CPU efficiency.

List of INSTRUMENTS:

For the complete table of contents, listing all of the instrument patches included in the NOSTALGIA LIBRARY, click on “NOSTALGIA Patch List (PDF)” at above left, to view the PDF file (this file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Something To Think About

One always has to remember these days where the garbage pail is. It’s so easy to make sounds and to put sounds together into something that appears to be music – but it’s just as hard as it always was to make good music.

— Bob Moog

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